This season is sh**t, this episode was better than average. My take on the Mad Queen is a bit mixed:

I think Dany was convinced Cersei wouldn't yield. That's her whole speech on mercy as weakness from the day before. She will have to torch the civilians because it's the only way. And it's her willingness to do what it takes that makes her better than all the kind people Cersei has destroyed. And she relishes taking revenge for Missandei. And she's enjoying burning the fleet and the golden company. And then the bell rings and she's disappointed. The surrender robs her of her revenge fantasy. And that's when she snaps.

People really need to relax a bit. Even if Season 8 is an increasingly worse trainwreck terms of writing - which is a shame, because the acting has been excellent - no series is worth getting excessively vitriolic.

For all the problems I have with this season, it's worth pointing out Emilia Clarke has been absolutely phenomenal.

Indeed! I've never really liked her acting as Daenerys besides Season 1 and some of the few epic moments in Essos, and yet her performance this season has been excellent. If anything that makes the writing problem even more frustrating, that performance combined with good writing for the season could have been epic.

- I really liked that ShowArya ended up letting go of her desire for revenge and living for the future instead of letting her anger about the past destroy her (even if GRRM probably deserves credit for this rather than D&D) and her calling the Hound "Sandor" was a nice touch

Given how much I've criticized Arya in past years for being a psychopath I admit this was a very nice moment, and a welcome turn for the character.

Threatening someone with death is not "excessive vitriol". It's taken to a whole different level that's not acceptable on any level.

You keep bringing up "death threats" made against you that were by people not on Atlas. At least 10 times. It sucks that people suck, but dude, it's really getting old and it sounds like you need to see a counselor if it's bothering you that much that you have to repeat that ad nauseum here as a deflection point for when you get butthurt that people have legitimate criticisms of the poor show writing in Season 8. I'm sorry someone else on a completely different website threatened your life. That is probably a scary thing. But you have repeatedly lumped RINO Tom and anyone else who dares criticize season 8 in with that threat undeservedly. No one on this website threatened your life. So please stop treating it as we did.

No, I'm just a completely stupid moron who knows nothing about anything decent. At least that's the impressions I get from here.

I would vote for anyone, even a candidate I disagreed on every other issue with, if they promised to bring Benioff and Weiss to justice for the Sins Against Writing they've committed since Season 5.

By the way, I think anyone who complains about the writing in Season 8 should've started complaining in Season 5, but I suppose I'm glad that Dip****&Dumb*** screwed it up for the casual fanbase as well.

Did you all think we were dealing with high art here? 'cause we never were. This is and always has been goofy elf and fairy, knights and damsels bull spit. It literally features dragons, were you expecting the greatest story ever told? FREAKING DRAGONS! Now there is a petition to remake season 8? Holy hell people, you're not owed a perfect show (as if that was even possible with you finicky phuques).

Did you all think we were dealing with high art here? 'cause we never were. This is and always has been goofy elf and fairy, knights and damsels bull spit. It literally features dragons, were you expecting the greatest story ever told? FREAKING DRAGONS! Now there is a petition to remake season 8? Holy hell people, you're not owed a perfect show (as if that was even possible with you finicky phuques).

DRAGONS!

My understanding is that The Ring Cycle is usually considered to be High Art and that it absolutely features a dragon.

Though you're correct that the books and the show were always... I don't know... high production values middlebrow? Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but pretending that this was not the case, sure, did no one any favours.

Did you all think we were dealing with high art here? 'cause we never were. This is and always has been goofy elf and fairy, knights and damsels bull spit. It literally features dragons, were you expecting the greatest story ever told? FREAKING DRAGONS! Now there is a petition to remake season 8? Holy hell people, you're not owed a perfect show (as if that was even possible with you finicky phuques).

DRAGONS!

My understanding is that The Ring Cycle is usually considered to be High Art and that it absolutely features a dragon.

a dragon is a small part of one quarter of that (if my Googling is accurate), but you're right, dragons can be part of high art I suppose, but not normally. I'd guess 99.6% of art with dragons is not high art and most of it is garbage. Puff the Magic Dragon is a fine song, but it's hardly Bach.

Quote

Though you're correct that the books and the show were always... I don't know... high production values middlebrow? Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but pretending that this was not the case, sure, did no one any favours.

I'm not even sure it rose to middlebrow, and you're right, there is nothing wrong with that.

Did you all think we were dealing with high art here? 'cause we never were. This is and always has been goofy elf and fairy, knights and damsels bull spit. It literally features dragons, were you expecting the greatest story ever told? FREAKING DRAGONS! Now there is a petition to remake season 8? Holy hell people, you're not owed a perfect show (as if that was even possible with you finicky phuques).

DRAGONS!

You usually put more effort into your posts, but I see you have deliberately dumbed them down to make fun of people upset about this writing. How ridiculous is it to suggest that *fantasy* can't also be high art?! Fantasy is set in a hypothetical universe with different laws of nature, but it is not just anything goes. WTF does the inclusion of dragons have to do with competent writing? This show WAS high art for the first five seasons - I have watched them all plenty of times. Season 6 was even pretty good. Seasons 7 and 8 took the exact attitude you do toward GoT's fans, and that is why they have sucked.

Did you all think we were dealing with high art here? 'cause we never were. This is and always has been goofy elf and fairy, knights and damsels bull spit. It literally features dragons, were you expecting the greatest story ever told? FREAKING DRAGONS! Now there is a petition to remake season 8? Holy hell people, you're not owed a perfect show (as if that was even possible with you finicky phuques).

DRAGONS!

My understanding is that The Ring Cycle is usually considered to be High Art and that it absolutely features a dragon.

a dragon is a small part of one quarter of that (if my Googling is accurate), but you're right, dragons can be part of high art I suppose, but not normally. I'd guess 99.6% of art with dragons is not high art and most of it is garbage. Puff the Magic Dragon is a fine song, but it's hardly Bach.

Quote

Though you're correct that the books and the show were always... I don't know... high production values middlebrow? Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but pretending that this was not the case, sure, did no one any favours.

I'm not even sure it rose to middlebrow, and you're right, there is nothing wrong with that.

If Pixar can make a movie like Inside Out which is arguably a far higher quality, more thoughtful, and more sophisticated work than Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Hamlet then there's no reason not to expect high quality writing from a story simply because it is popular or has mainstream appeal. Good writing should not be restricted to genres that have received a seal of approval from the same folks who threw a fit when Stephen King received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards in 2003. In any case, the first three ASOIAF books (especially A Storm of Swords) are easily among the best modern works in the fantasy genre.

People really need to relax a bit. Even if Season 8 is an increasingly worse trainwreck terms of writing - which is a shame, because the acting has been excellent - no series is worth getting excessively vitriolic.

For all the problems I have with this season, it's worth pointing out Emilia Clarke has been absolutely phenomenal.

Indeed! I've never really liked her acting as Daenerys besides Season 1 and some of the few epic moments in Essos, and yet her performance this season has been excellent. If anything that makes the writing problem even more frustrating, that performance combined with good writing for the season could have been epic.

- I really liked that ShowArya ended up letting go of her desire for revenge and living for the future instead of letting her anger about the past destroy her (even if GRRM probably deserves credit for this rather than D&D) and her calling the Hound "Sandor" was a nice touch

Given how much I've criticized Arya in past years for being a psychopath I admit this was a very nice moment, and a welcome turn for the character.

Threatening someone with death is not "excessive vitriol". It's taken to a whole different level that's not acceptable on any level.

You keep bringing up "death threats" made against you that were by people not on Atlas. At least 10 times. It sucks that people suck, but dude, it's really getting old and it sounds like you need to see a counselor if it's bothering you that much that you have to repeat that ad nauseum here as a deflection point for when you get butthurt that people have legitimate criticisms of the poor show writing in Season 8. I'm sorry someone else on a completely different website threatened your life. That is probably a scary thing. But you have repeatedly lumped RINO Tom and anyone else who dares criticize season 8 in with that threat undeservedly. No one on this website threatened your life. So please stop treating it as we did.

No, I'm just a completely stupid moron who knows nothing about anything decent. At least that's the impressions I get from here.

God, I hate this fanbase.

me me Me mE ME

Good job on not actually responding to anything. Not that I should expect anything different at this point.

People really need to relax a bit. Even if Season 8 is an increasingly worse trainwreck terms of writing - which is a shame, because the acting has been excellent - no series is worth getting excessively vitriolic.

For all the problems I have with this season, it's worth pointing out Emilia Clarke has been absolutely phenomenal.

Indeed! I've never really liked her acting as Daenerys besides Season 1 and some of the few epic moments in Essos, and yet her performance this season has been excellent. If anything that makes the writing problem even more frustrating, that performance combined with good writing for the season could have been epic.

- I really liked that ShowArya ended up letting go of her desire for revenge and living for the future instead of letting her anger about the past destroy her (even if GRRM probably deserves credit for this rather than D&D) and her calling the Hound "Sandor" was a nice touch

Given how much I've criticized Arya in past years for being a psychopath I admit this was a very nice moment, and a welcome turn for the character.

Threatening someone with death is not "excessive vitriol". It's taken to a whole different level that's not acceptable on any level.

You keep bringing up "death threats" made against you that were by people not on Atlas. At least 10 times. It sucks that people suck, but dude, it's really getting old and it sounds like you need to see a counselor if it's bothering you that much that you have to repeat that ad nauseum here as a deflection point for when you get butthurt that people have legitimate criticisms of the poor show writing in Season 8. I'm sorry someone else on a completely different website threatened your life. That is probably a scary thing. But you have repeatedly lumped RINO Tom and anyone else who dares criticize season 8 in with that threat undeservedly. No one on this website threatened your life. So please stop treating it as we did.

No, I'm just a completely stupid moron who knows nothing about anything decent. At least that's the impressions I get from here.

God, I hate this fanbase.

me me Me mE ME

Good job on not actually responding to anything. Not that I should expect anything different at this point.

I don't want to clog up the irony thread with stuff about a TV show, but dude ... look back at your response to people! They'll bring up a problem they have with the show's writing and you have thrown out plenty of non sequiturs about how someone online wants to kill you.

People really need to relax a bit. Even if Season 8 is an increasingly worse trainwreck terms of writing - which is a shame, because the acting has been excellent - no series is worth getting excessively vitriolic.

For all the problems I have with this season, it's worth pointing out Emilia Clarke has been absolutely phenomenal.

Indeed! I've never really liked her acting as Daenerys besides Season 1 and some of the few epic moments in Essos, and yet her performance this season has been excellent. If anything that makes the writing problem even more frustrating, that performance combined with good writing for the season could have been epic.

- I really liked that ShowArya ended up letting go of her desire for revenge and living for the future instead of letting her anger about the past destroy her (even if GRRM probably deserves credit for this rather than D&D) and her calling the Hound "Sandor" was a nice touch

Given how much I've criticized Arya in past years for being a psychopath I admit this was a very nice moment, and a welcome turn for the character.

Threatening someone with death is not "excessive vitriol". It's taken to a whole different level that's not acceptable on any level.

You keep bringing up "death threats" made against you that were by people not on Atlas. At least 10 times. It sucks that people suck, but dude, it's really getting old and it sounds like you need to see a counselor if it's bothering you that much that you have to repeat that ad nauseum here as a deflection point for when you get butthurt that people have legitimate criticisms of the poor show writing in Season 8. I'm sorry someone else on a completely different website threatened your life. That is probably a scary thing. But you have repeatedly lumped RINO Tom and anyone else who dares criticize season 8 in with that threat undeservedly. No one on this website threatened your life. So please stop treating it as we did.

No, I'm just a completely stupid moron who knows nothing about anything decent. At least that's the impressions I get from here.

God, I hate this fanbase.

me me Me mE ME

Good job on not actually responding to anything. Not that I should expect anything different at this point.

I don't want to clog up the irony thread with stuff about a TV show, but dude ... look back at your response to people! They'll bring up a problem they have with the show's writing and you have thrown out plenty of non sequiturs about how someone online wants to kill you.

When one side is threatening to kill people (and I have been followed home by someone) then of course I'm going to be bitter.

All I'll say is this: They were assured books would be finished. They are not, and the writers were largely given the task of untangling many stupid plot threads that Martin had overcomplicated. They literally have no other source material to go off of.

But hey, we're living in a world where liking season 8 is illegal or something.

^ No one here has threatened to kill you, so maybe you could just leave that one in the rear view mirror? People here have typed at length about their specific concerns with the writing, and you have not extended the same effort toward defending the writing. You just deflect because there are aspiring murderers and apparent stalkers out there who happen to share our view ??

And you touched on one of our points: D&D have demonstrated that they are very good at their jobs when they have source material but lack the creativity and storytelling prowess to put a good product out there without it.

^ No one here has threatened to kill you, so maybe you could just leave that one in the rear view mirror? People here have typed at length about their specific concerns with the writing, and you have not extended the same effort toward defending the writing. You just deflect because there are aspiring murderers and apparent stalkers out there who happen to share our view ??

And you touched on one of our points: D&D have demonstrated that they are very good at their jobs when they have source material but lack the creativity and storytelling prowess to put a good product out there without it.

And I am going to keep mentioning it. I don't care if anyone on this site has or not. Especially when your reponse to the whole thing has been "That's bad."

And they signed on to adapt a book series they were assured would be finished. You cannot hold them at fault for literally having to complete a story they had no role in creating in a completely different medium. But I'm just looking at this logically of course. What do i know?

^ No one here has threatened to kill you, so maybe you could just leave that one in the rear view mirror? People here have typed at length about their specific concerns with the writing, and you have not extended the same effort toward defending the writing. You just deflect because there are aspiring murderers and apparent stalkers out there who happen to share our view ??

And you touched on one of our points: D&D have demonstrated that they are very good at their jobs when they have source material but lack the creativity and storytelling prowess to put a good product out there without it.

And I am going to keep mentioning it. I don't care if anyone on this site has or not. Especially when your reponse to the whole thing has been "That's bad."

And they signed on to adapt a book series they were assured would be finished. You cannot hold them at fault for literally having to complete a story they had no role in creating in a completely different medium. But I'm just looking at this logically of course. What do i know?

Okay...

1) LMFAO, what should our response be beyond that?! Change our views on the script? Haha, PM me your address and we can all go in on a card and some chocolates to send you. I’ll call your local police and plead with them to get you an armed guard outside your house, too. In the meantime, I suggest avoiding Reddit and YouTube!

2) Oh, but I can. I can expect them to do MUCH better than this. And they haven’t. They have managed to subvert everyone’s expectations! It’s telling you can’t even budge on one aspect of the writing, too ... D&D claimed Dany “forgot” about the Iron Fleet a mere scene after she was across from Jon strategizing it and he mentions it?! Come on, dude, if you’re going to defend this abortion, at least give an inch to not look like you’re related to them.

When the vast majority of people can see how dumbed down the writing has gotten and can accurately see D&D as mediocre writers and you find yourself in the other corner, it might be at least worth CONSIDERING that you need to re-evaluate? After all, the death threat guy could be a lunatic who belongs in jail but also happens to have accurately perceived the atrocity that is this season’s writing, lol.

^ No one here has threatened to kill you, so maybe you could just leave that one in the rear view mirror? People here have typed at length about their specific concerns with the writing, and you have not extended the same effort toward defending the writing. You just deflect because there are aspiring murderers and apparent stalkers out there who happen to share our view ??

And you touched on one of our points: D&D have demonstrated that they are very good at their jobs when they have source material but lack the creativity and storytelling prowess to put a good product out there without it.

And I am going to keep mentioning it. I don't care if anyone on this site has or not. Especially when your reponse to the whole thing has been "That's bad."

And they signed on to adapt a book series they were assured would be finished. You cannot hold them at fault for literally having to complete a story they had no role in creating in a completely different medium. But I'm just looking at this logically of course. What do i know?

Okay...

1) LMFAO, what should our response be beyond that?! Change our views on the script? Haha, PM me your address and we can all go in on a card and some chocolates to send you. I’ll call your local police and plead with them to get you an armed guard outside your house, too. In the meantime, I suggest avoiding Reddit and YouTube!

2) Oh, but I can. I can expect them to do MUCH better than this. And they haven’t. They have managed to subvert everyone’s expectations! It’s telling you can’t even budge on one aspect of the writing, too ... D&D claimed Dany “forgot” about the Iron Fleet a mere scene after she was across from Jon strategizing it and he mentions it?! Come on, dude, if you’re going to defend this abortion, at least give an inch to not look like you’re related to them.

When the vast majority of people can see how dumbed down the writing has gotten and can accurately see D&D as mediocre writers and you find yourself in the other corner, it might be at least worth CONSIDERING that you need to re-evaluate? After all, the death threat guy could be a lunatic who belongs in jail but also happens to have accurately perceived the atrocity that is this season’s writing, lol.

I see you decided to ignore my point about them bring signed on to adapt books and not create an original show.

But of course, it's easier to scream that this is the worst show in the history of television.